In November 2008, I was living in Whangarei, New Zealand (I'd temporarily moved back to my family's place while I finished up my Masters) when this email appeared on the IXDA mailing list.

(Thank you Gmail and your neverending space!)

I replied a few weeks later (four years next week as it turns out), when I was back in Auckland again.

(There's more, which is pretty funny in an overenthusiastic kinda way… to the point that I'm going to leave it safe in my email archive.)

And so it began.

Personally, I'm stunned to look back and see how different things were for me back then. For one thing, I'd never been on a plane. Also, I'd signed up for twitter but only used it once. (Yes, really).

It's been a lot of fun along the way. Though it did take until Interaction 11—a full two years—until I could confirm that Jereon was in fact real i.e. actually meet him. (Though apparently that's nothing: Nick Fink told me that he worked with one magazine editor for eight years until he met him in real life.)

Four years later and over 500 articles later, Johnny Holland is taking a break…for now.

Jeroen sums it up best on the site, but I'd also like to say a heart felt thank you to Jeroen and everyone who I've had the honour to work with: past kahunas Steve and Will; Jeff (Radio Johnny); Martin (Johnny Holland TV); the many conference organisers for UX event coverage; and all the authors who felt the call to share their knowledge and opinions with the interaction design community. And a special thanks to all my fellow conference reporters!

Vicky Teinaki is a user experience designer at Newcastle upon Tyne agency Orange Bus. She is also working on a PhD at Northumbria University about better ways of communicating design methods within the design industry.